Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon Directed By: William Wyler Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: G (General Audience) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Sony Pictures Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 99 Release Date: October 23, 2001 Running Time: 155 minutes Theatrical Release Date: September 19, 1968
Amazon.com essential video: Ah, Barbra. Of all her onscreen personas, she sparkles in none as she does in her role as 1930s comedian Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl. Portraying the life of this star of stage and radio, Brice preens and prances and sings, captivating her audience both onscreen and off. Fanny Brice started life on the Lower East Side of New York, the daughter of a Jewish saloon owner. Not the prettiest girl around, Brice still managed to quickly rise to stardom as a performer in the Ziegfield Follies. A shrewd, obstinate woman, Brice dictated her own success story on stage; things were a different matter in romance. Falling hard for the stunning Nick Arnstein (suavely played by Omar Sharif), Brice must navigate a difficult marriage. While kids may love the tunes (which include the now-infamous "People," as in "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world"), the plot is definitely adult-oriented. Enjoy this one, but don't go too far out of your way for the sequel, Funny Lady. --Jenny Brown
Modifed from its original Bad in the day, this was my most favorite movie. I was sitting down with my partner watching it, and we both noticed that several scenes were deleted. Except for the two songs missing, this is the best movie I have ever seen, funny and witty.
GREAT Movie! This movie is such a great movie! I just bought it the other day and I really got my money's worth. I didn't realize how long it was, but in a good way! It is one where you don't mind how long it is because it is so good.
If you love the classics you will love this movie! It is a musical and the music I think is really pleasing to the ears.
Parts of it are also really FUNNY! I know why they called it Funny Girl. With a more serious ending that really brought the movie together and gave a whole new meaning to the title.
Mrs. Arnstein, Mrs. Arnstein. What a Beautiful Beautiful Name... When Barbra Streisand reprised her role as Fanny Brice in the movie version of Funny Girl, her stardom was cemented. Not only was it a huge hit, but it was loved by audiences, has gone on to be one of her most adored performances, and made her an Academy Award winning actress. Through it all, she deserved every bit of it.
The movie tells a loosely-told story of famous vaudeville star Fanny Brice, and how she struggled for fame and finding the man she loves in the first half, and the second half goes more dramatic, telling how her true love, Nicky Arnstein, threatens to drag her down with him as he digs deeper and deeper into gambling debt and corrupt behavior. The story, if you really pay attention to it, is not terribly deep or original, and in the middle switches from a rags-to-riches/beating the odds in show business story to a more dramatic star-crossed lovers story. But even so , with likeable characters like Fanny, Nicky, Mr. Ziegfeld, and so on, you cannot help but feel involved in their ordeals.
The performances here are all top notch. Omar Sharif brings a perfect amount of charm and shadiness to Nicky, and Walter Pidgeon is delightfully smug and caring as Florenz Ziegfeld. But the performance to watch, without a doubt, is Barbra Streisand as Fanny. She not only balances her comic and dramatic abilities beautifully, but makes us really like Fanny as a friend. She is confident, naive, happy-go-lucky, and vulnerable all at once. She deserved the Oscar more than anyone else that night, and she got it.
Last, but not least, the songs are just magnificent. Almost exclusively sung by Barbra, she is perfectly at home singing all of them, and succeeds in most. She's fun in "I'm The Greatest Star," radiantly sexy in "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You," tearjerking in "People," and, of course, her bravura performance of "Don't Rain on My Parade" (the scene with the tugboat will give you shivers the same way Julie Andrews' scene on the hill does in Sound of Music). Some songs are good, and some songs are great, but no song is mediocre.
I could go on and on, but I want those who haven't discovered the movie yet to find out on their own. Barbra's fans will worship it, fans of musicals will love it, and even those who don't care for either musicals or Barbra Streisand will smile at least a few times. If you haven't seen it yet, don't waste another second.
Funny Girl/Funny Lady DVD - Great Seller, very fast delivery The seller was great. I received the product shortly after I ordered it. It was in perfect condition. I will buy from this seller again!
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Barbra At Her Best The vehicle that made Barbra Streisand a major superstar. From Broadway acclaim, to her 1968 Academy Award winning performance, "Funny Girl" is Barbra Streisand. When she sings its most familiar number "People", it seems all time stands still. And to date, there still is no one else who can touch that song but Barbra. As the popular comedic singer/actress Fanny Brice, we're given a lesson of survival through adversity. And Omar Sharif's finest hour since his appearance in "Doctor Zhivago" as Fanny's gambling addicted first husband Nicky Arnstein. You so much want to see these two succeed as a couple; but alas, it just wasn't to be.
Another standout is the finale, as Barbra so convincingly sings "My Man" with every award winning emotion imaginable. A note of trivia, Barbra Streisand won her 1968 Best Actress Oscar in a tie with Katherine Hepburn for her grand performance in "The Lion In Winter". An extreme rarity in Oscar history, having only happened once before back in the 1930s.
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